Chapter 7 - VOICES IN THE WALLS
The trial was set for early spring, but the grand jury proceedings required preliminary depositions.
Because of Drew's age and severe trauma, the court ruled that his testimony would be taken via a closed-circuit video deposition in the judge’s private chambers, sparing him the terror of a crowded courtroom. Yet the preparation required endless hours with Dr. Elena Ross, a forensic pediatric psychologist specializing in severe captivity trauma.
Every Thursday, I drove Drew to Dr. Ross’s clinic downtown.
Drew sat in an oversized leather armchair, his cast covered in bright stickers other children had given him at physical therapy. On Dr. Ross’s table sat a miniature dollhouse—an architectural replica of a suburban home, complete with tiny wooden furniture and miniature porcelain figures.
"Drew," Dr. Ross said gently, her voice like warm water over river stones. "Can you show me where you and Lily slept before you came to Uncle Paul’s?"
Drew stared at the dollhouse. For nearly five minutes, he didn't move. Then, with agonizing slowness, his small fingers picked up the two miniature child figures.
He didn't place them in the bedroom with the tiny bunk beds. He didn't place them in the living room near the television.
He lifted the miniature roof, reached down past the ground floor, and removed the wooden floorboards leading into the foundation. He set the two children into the raw, unpainted crawlspace beneath the foundation walls.
Then he picked up the mother figure.
He didn't place her near the children. He placed her on the roof of the house, facing the street, holding a tiny wooden telephone.
"Why is she on the roof, Drew?" Dr. Ross asked softly.
"Because she was watching for the postman," Drew whispered. "If the postman saw us through the basement window, she told him we were at Grandma's house. But Grandma was in the cemetery."
"Did she talk to you through the door?"
Drew nodded. "She had a speaker. Like the one at the drive-through where Daddy used to buy french fries. A little black box in the ceiling."
My jaw dropped. "A speaker?" I whispered from the corner of the room.
Dr. Ross held up a hand to caution me, keeping her focus entirely on the boy. "What did she say through the speaker, Drew?"
Drew began twisting the hem of his t-shirt, his knuckles whitening. His voice shifted, dropping an octave, imitating an eerie, lilting cadence that sent an electric jolt of revulsion through my spine.
"'Good morning, my little lambs,'" Drew recited, his eyes wide and vacant. "'Today the air outside is full of poison. Today the birds are dying in the trees. If you go outside, your lungs will turn to water. You must stay in the clean room where Mother keeps you safe.'"
"And what happened if you made noise?" Dr. Ross asked.
"She played the music," Drew said.
"What music?"
"The piano music. Very, very loud. From the big speakers on the floor above our heads. She played the same song over and over until the ceiling shook and dust fell in our eyes. It made Lily scream, but no one could hear Lily scream because the piano was louder than the thunder."
I leaned my head against the wood paneling of the consultation room, my teeth grinding together until my temples throbbed. The neighbors on Elmhurst Lane had told investigators they often heard classical piano music floating from Reena’s windows late at night. They had thought it was artistic expression. They had thought it was a widow finding solace in art.
It had been an acoustic silencer designed to drown out the wails of two starving toddlers buried beneath her feet.
"Drew," Dr. Ross said, leaning forward. "Did anyone else ever come down the stairs? Did you ever see a man?"
Drew stopped twisting his shirt. His eyes shifted toward the office window, where grey clouds were gathering over the city skyline.
"The man with the silver hair," he whispered. "The man who smelled like medicine."
"Dr. Vance?"
"He brought the needles," Drew said, his lower lip beginning to tremble. "When Lily wouldn't stop crying about her tummy hurting, he gave her the sleep-water in her leg. And then she slept for two whole days and I couldn't wake her up. I thought she was dead like Daddy. I held her hand and cried, but she wouldn't open her eyes."
Dr. Ross looked up at me over her notepad. Her pen was trembling. In thirty years of forensic child advocacy, she had seen neglect, physical violence, and parental abandonment. But this was industrial, calculated psychological annihilation.
"Thank you, Drew," Dr. Ross whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "You did so well. You are the bravest boy I have ever met."
Drew didn't look brave. He looked like a soldier who had survived an artillery barrage only to realize he had to live the rest of his life with the ringing in his ears.
"Uncle Paul?" he called out, turning in his chair.
"I'm right here, buddy."
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"Can we go to the lumberyard today? Can we buy the wood for the treehouse?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a broad, steady smile onto my face. "We’re buying twenty planks of cedar, Drew. And we’re building that treehouse twelve feet in the air, right where the sun hits the branches first."
